77 replies to this topic

[RUN 422]

Why the hell is 7 showing replays during the marathon? Surely they can show replays AFTER the marathon!!! This just sums up their whole broadcast. CRAP!!!
I've phoned and made my opinion known well and truly. No more channel 7 for me.

[loubee]

I've rung twice to complain and will send them an email.

Just can't believe it, the marathon should be sacred.

[Twopennys]

Complaints hotline 1300 737 507

[ratdog]

Ch7 really know how to piss off the running community.  Dont they realise that running is our life!!!!!

Ive got the phone number , now ill ring and rant over the whole coverage of the Olympics.  No Xmas card for Ch7 this year thats for sure..

Go troopy

[kb]

Same from me.

I don't want to watch replays of Americans running in sunglasses and bling winning relay medals.

I have just finished a 14 hour night shift.  I am staying awake and I want to watch the marathon.

Tantrum to follow.

wt

[Emrun]

You can get splits here

Channel 7 suck

[trotter]

Agree, what with the replays & all those #\@#** adverts....sooo annoying....seems maybe thye are now going to stay with the marathon...

Between the ads...wooo these guys are going so fast... amazing.

Go Troopy

PS why does C7 have to hand out cameras to the medal winning athletes...it seems really inappropriate to me ??? It's obviously a advert for the camera...but I find it inappropriate...to be handing over (more in many cases) to these champs (yeah I reckon these guys are all tops, and some have looked a bit uncomfortable recepients) who can probably  afford to buy themselevs a camera (or get one from their sponsors). How about giving them to Little Aths clubs or someone a bit needier...

Just a thought !

And go Troopy.

[crowpower]

All of the above.  

[Greeno]

Good to see they are staying with the action now. I almost throew the TV off my balcony when we crossed to the womens 4x400m from last night.

Channel 7 have been pathetic this Olympics, lets hope 9 or 10 are bidding for the rights soon.

This marathon is becoming a classic. Big finish coming up.

[ratdog]

what a time to go to an advert, 10 minutes from the end.   Hell with Ch7,  Im so pissed off with them ill never watch Home and Away again.

Edited by ratdog, 24 August 2008 - 11:28 AM.

[Don Juan]

There's a Stephanie Rice 'Heroes' special coming up.

The marathon finish will be shown this afternoon.

[StellaBella]

TonyGreen, on Aug 24 2008, 11:18 AM, said:

Good to see they are staying with the action now. I almost throew the TV off my balcony when we crossed to the womens 4x400m from last night.

Channel 7 have been pathetic this Olympics, lets hope 9 or 10 are bidding for the rights soon.

This marathon is becoming a classic. Big finish coming up.

Screw the big 3 networks... give the games to SBS!

[Twopennys]

LOL now Sandy Roberts is at pains to reassure us that they will cross back as Troopy hits the finish - people power!!!

[Sparkie]

Oh boo hoo.   Showing the entire race, and/or going for extended periods without ads was never going to happen.  Doesn't anyone on this forum work for a company that exists to make a profit?

Broadcasting would have been planned months ago, and no one would have predicted the first half would have panned out the way it did.  For the average punter, the first half of a marathon where 25 guys run together is hardly rivetting viewing.  So they would have planned to use the boring end of the race to show highlights of last night's events.

Yes it is a shame that a very interesting first half of a championship marathon wasn't fully covered, but it is hardly a conspiracy.

Except for the cycling on SBS, no extended event has been covered in full - so why should the marathon be any different.

[Twopennys]

Incorrect Sparkie - they knew before they made the decision to go away from coverage that it wasn't a 'normal' marathon.

Also - why wouldn't the expectation be that 7 would stay with the Marathon - the precedence was set during the womens marathon last Sunday a fact you conveniently overlooked making the claim that only SBS cycling was full coverage (and before you say it - yes they do have ads on SBS too).

[StellaBella]

Twopennys, on Aug 24 2008, 11:49 AM, said:

LOL now Sandy Roberts is at pains to reassure us that they will cross back as Troopy hits the finish - people power!!!

I'm sure it's been longer than 8 mins... I bet they'll just try and pass off what they show us as live when it's not... again!

[plu]

Good coverage - I enjoyed watching it.  

cheers  Plu

[nicwiltor1]

troop in 60th

[No_longer_back_of_the_pack]

StellaBella, on Aug 24 2008, 12:28 PM, said:

Screw the big 3 networks... give the games to SBS!

SBS - Snow Bl*** Snow, no at least I can see a picture on channel 7 even if their coverage is far from ideal at times.

[BEN-HUR]

Hi Sparkles  

Sparkie, on Aug 24 2008, 11:49 AM, said:

So they would have planned to use the boring end of the race to show highlights of last night's events.

That's blasphemy      ...we've been waiting 16 days for this.

There was no real reason to show the 400m relay repeats during the marathon - show it during the basketball instead. There were men running their guts out in the gruelling sun at an incredible pace over 42km in the hope to obtain just 3 medals whilst we get shown a bunch of one lapper show ponies do their thing for umpteen medals.

I'm sure you can see my point  

Edited by BEN-HUR, 24 August 2008 - 12:29 PM.

[Rudolf]

Sparkie, You should remeber GWB famous speach :


You are either with us, or You are against us.


I reckon people are waking up, they would largely boycot whatever was advertised, there will be no company willing to pay for the ads during races in teh future, networks will have to adjust and we will return to the good old days.

Yes it was socialism-komunism, call it what You want, but during my years back in europe, every race, every sport game was broadcast in full, noninterupted.

Further, all movies were shown uninterupted, all shows uninterupted, there was specuial time slots for commercial, clearly planned for in TV guide, after the film finished.


Wake up people, take power back

[StellaBella]

Itsfunatthebackofthepack, on Aug 24 2008, 01:24 PM, said:

SBS - Snow Bl*** Snow, no at least I can see a picture on channel 7 even if their coverage is far from ideal at times.

I didn't think of that... I have SBS HD so no picture issues!

Maybe the channels shld just split the program... but that's never going to happen!

[EzzaMac]

Today's coverage summed up Channel 7's efforts for the whole Olympics- woeful! I understand they have to advertise in an event of this duration, but to  go to an ad break with only a bit over ten mins left in the race was terrible. The worst part was showing the 4x400m finals, this could have been done after the race. The mens marathon is one of the most prestigous if not the most prestigous events of the whole Olympics and Channel 7 treated the viewers with contempt. This is just what they did throughout the whole Olympics- they showed events and claimed they were live when they had already been held. You could hear the events on ABC radio or the results could be seen on the internet. They downright lied on numerous occasions saying things like 'his race is yet to come' when they had already finished- this occurred in both the mens 1500m and 5000m heats. I don't mind if they show heats on delay but don't lie about it and pretend it's live! Does Channel 7 think that the public don't look at the internet or listen to the radio? On a more positive note well done to ABC radio - their coverage in all events has been great. Also well done to the commentary team in the marathon this morning- Bruce, Monners and David Culbert did a top job and saved face for Channel 7.

[Twopennys]

There is a thread on the Yahoo-7 site here where you can vent your spleen (limited to 2000 letters) - not that it makes any difference - it is all but over and 9 has 2012.

[Rudolf]

actualy teh marathon commentary was off the mark, Monna telling all the time that the lead group is going to blow out and come back and was suggesting medals would go the 2nd or 3rd group, he was still telling this at teh 20km, and only after 30km finaly gave in and accepted that the medals are decided.


None of what was said was really helpfull.

They were talking about Bordin - he has no chance and he is running only because he pays tribute to olympics marathon as the defending champ, however Bordin simply run his pace and finish 12th !!!

Monnas prediction of Troopys finish were also completely off, talking about top finisheing places - top 15 etc, while Troopys split were showing significant slowing each 5km.

maybe Raelene would have done better job, sorry

[DANRAN]

Its taken 35 years but I rang a television station this morning to complain- about repeats of 4x400m races during the marathon.  They must be on drugs.  Do they expect ratings to go up by showing replays of relays?? I was probably not the only one as it took a while to get through.  I rang staight away so we did not see any more repeats of old events during the race.  2 hours every 4 years in non-prime time is surely not too much to ask.

[RunOnSand]

It wasn’t just the marathon; it was the whole 2 plus weeks   .  No telecast time tables (at least I couldn’t find one, I can understand that sometimes they had to cross to other events and change… but why can’t the publish something as some sort of guideline), no idea what was televised live what was recorded.  
At this day and age of multichannel TV it isn’t good enough.  There are so much going on that one channel cannot have all (7 just gave SBS, whatever they didn’t want…and still how come SBS were able to produce time table).  The athletic in general wasn’t covered when it had no Australian interest, maybe that the way commercial TV is working.  However, they should either show more on their own digital platform or give it to other who could.

[AJS]

Sparkie you are wrong.

It was clear from the start that this race was different.  There was nothing else on. Absolute rubbish to show a repeat of anything.

A corporation like Channel 7 should have managers, producers and presenters who can think on their feet.  See that this was different (as Bruce and company noted after the first 5k - and would have noted after the first 10k) and been able to adjust there broadcast.  This lot are like dinosaur generals from WW1 who could see an attack was all wrong after the first 5 minutes but kept going for a couple of days anyway because that was the plan.

They left the broadcast at about 17 or 18 minutes and returned at about 51 minutes then they stuck with it.  

That 1300 number was busy for a long time so good on all you who rang up.  Who knows maybe it did change their mind, maybe they took notice and shelved other plan for replays.

Again wouldn't it be good to see 30 minutes after the finish to see where people ended up.  What they did show was interesting;  Rothlin looked fresh and so did the American.

Bruce reckoned that it was the best championship marathon ever.  I don't know about that but it sure was a good one.

[Uncle Dave]

Originally posted by Troopy:

Quote

actualy teh marathon commentary was off the mark, Monna telling all the time that the lead group is going to blow out and come back and was suggesting medals would go the 2nd or 3rd group, he was still telling this at teh 20km, and only after 30km finaly gave in and accepted that the medals are decided.

In fairness Rudolf, Tsegay (who wasn't with the leaders at 30k) passed Deriba inside the stadium for Bronze.  (* Edit - I've just looked at the stats, and actually Tsegay was actually 23 seconds off the pace by the time they went through 20k)

There were a couple odd comments that I thought weren't totally on the ball at the time, but none that really stick out in my memory. Can't be easy to fill 2hrs plus with continuous, engaging, informative conversation without a bit of filler about how Troopy's kid is progressing through potty training or whatever. Never done it, but I'd imagine much of that is going on while they're frantically trying to pull some more relevant stat out of the database.

As for the relays, I didn't particularly want to see them again, but neither did I expect to see the marathon given continuous coverage. All in all, I was pretty happy with it.

Unc

Edited by Uncle Dave, 24 August 2008 - 02:22 PM.

[Sawadee]

Congratulations Channel 7 on a fantastic coverage! I am so happy that you have shown me those two guys finishing the rowing 186 times!   It taught me alot about patience waiting for you winners to replay the fantastic Mens 100m sprint final world record! Self promotion, laughing at your own jokes, thats Yum Cha! But anyway thank you! The marathon coverage was great, they tell me! I was doing something else!

[Wheats]

1) Ch 7 maintained their consistency today. Day 16 and their coverage is still crap!

2) I disagree with Rudolf's comments about Mona's commentary and I actually really enjoyed listening to him. How often do we get to hear expert analysis throughout a marathon? It was great to learn what they would be thinking and strategising, and Mona has a good sense of humour (classis eg: " you get a certificate for finishing in the top six, but you can't bite paper"). Even though his predictions were wrong, it just goes to show how the more impressive the performance was.

Give me Mona any day, rather than dear old Bruce constantly asking rhetorical questions and claiming that, whatever he is watching at the time, is 'very special'.

Jolly tough effort - well done Troopy.

Wheats

ps. If it is true about Ch 9 having the broadcast rights for London, lets hope they don't get the AFL rights in the meantime...

Edited by Wheats, 24 August 2008 - 02:48 PM.

[Ultraphil]

Except for crossing to the relay repeats, i thought the coverage was quite good. Monas knew what he was talking about!

Commentating!  Try commentating for 6 days. That can be interesting trying to find fillers for that!

[cakeboy]

Rudolf, on Aug 24 2008, 01:38 PM, said:

actualy teh marathon commentary was off the mark, Monna telling all the time that the lead group is going to blow out and come back and was suggesting medals would go the 2nd or 3rd group, he was still telling this at teh 20km, and only after 30km finaly gave in and accepted that the medals are decided.


None of what was said was really helpfull.

They were talking about Bordin - he has no chance and he is running only because he pays tribute to olympics marathon as the defending champ, however Bordin simply run his pace and finish 12th !!!

Monnas prediction of Troopys finish were also completely off, talking about top finisheing places - top 15 etc, while Troopys split were showing significant slowing each 5km.

maybe Raelene would have done better job, sorry

Bordin was a champ but I'm sure you mean Baldini.

I like Mona commentating, he's not perfect. Bruce didn't need to be there IMHO. He obviously schooled himself up on records, past results etc and was rattlling them off but it was obvious he'd never seen Gharib run before...or had forgetton him if he had. Bruce kept going on about him having somehting stuck in his pants, got a gel caught in his shorts etc. Did you not watch him win 2 world champs, Bruce? He does this all the way. He's a fidgeter.  In his first world champ win he spent the whole time fidgeting and wringing out his shirt, playing with his shorts etc.

Doesn't say that in any record book, unfortunately for Bruce.  

Sparkie; if I could take my business elsewhere I would. Unfortunately when a profitt making company wins the rights to monopolise and event and treat it's customers the way they have, then what recourse do we have?  You either spit it and not watch any coverage or you sit and stew and watch snippits of delayed sports in amongst all the hype, ads and yum-cha rubbish.

And why did they televise the football final live yesterday when SBS were showing it at the same time. Could they not have swallowed a bit of corporate pride/profit and shown another sport live?. It's ironic that one of the few "live" things they show is covered on another channel.

Call it Boo hoo, whatever you like... but we live in a community and the Olympics is a celebration of the best athletes in our communities. Tell me those guys running so fast in the heat today were doing it for profit? Was Lee Troop busting his arse for CH7 to make a profit?  No way; they wanted to do their best and represent their country/community. Thats what the Olympics is about.

Bring back the Olympics on ABC

Boo-hoo....Dave

[Bellthorpe]

cakeboy, on Aug 24 2008, 03:10 PM, said:

Sparkie; if I could take my business elsewhere I would. Unfortunately when a profitt making company wins the rights to monopolise and event and treat it's customers the way they have, then what recourse do we have?

  
  Here's the thing ... you and I are not customers of the television network.
  
  The advertisers are the customers.
  
  We are the product.
  
  The networks charge their customers (advertisers) to deliver the product (viewers). So long as that product delivery meets the expectations of the customers, our wishes do not count.

[No_longer_back_of_the_pack]

Wheats, on Aug 24 2008, 03:44 PM, said:

ps. If it is true about Ch 9 having the broadcast rights for London, lets hope they don't get the AFL rights in the meantime...

According to a footnote at the bottom of a string of letters critical of the Channel 7 preference to broadcast AFL rather than the Olympics in todays Adelaide Sunday Mail, Channel 9 and Foxtel have the rights to the 2012 Olympics.  In the meantime AFL broadcast rights will be renegotiated and I echo your hopes Wheats.  I wonder what 9 will do with the rugby league matches during the 2012 Olympics?

[No_longer_back_of_the_pack]

cakeboy, on Aug 24 2008, 04:10 PM, said:

And why did they televise the football final live yesterday when SBS were showing it at the same time. Could they not have swallowed a bit of corporate pride/profit and shown another sport live?. It's ironic that one of the few "live" things they show is covered on another channel.

Bring back the Olympics on ABC

Boo-hoo....Dave

What other sport was being played yesterday?  ABC radio was also broadcasting the football and giving very few crosses to other sports so I suspect not much.

Olympics on ABC.  How will they pay for it without advertising?

[Whippet gal]

Twopennys, on Aug 24 2008, 01:16 PM, said:

There is a thread on the Yahoo-7 site here where you can vent your spleen (limited to 2000 letters) - not that it makes any difference - it is all but over and 9 has 2012.

Had my two cents. Ch 7 did a shocking job from start to finish. Even the opening ceremony broadcast was full of technical errors.

Edited by Whippet gal, 24 August 2008 - 04:52 PM.

[Digger]

We should be thankful that between the 7km mark and the 18km mark n the Marathon this morning that nothing important happened, coz 7 didn't show it.

No, we didn't need the 10km and 15km splits.

No, we didn't need to see how a group of 15 leaders became 5.

Yes, we did need to see replays of Relays, and Australia was only in one of them.

[damyanos]

For someone who doesn't watch much comercial telly,I'm going to need counselling and de-programming lest I sleepwalk to the nearest Hardly Normal.CRAP effort 7.I used to annoy my kids
by timing how long their shows went between ads.The olympic coverage wins hands down...5-7
minutes ausually.
  I talked up the athletics to my three kids through endless swimming coverage in week one
and we were all let down.
  Why no schedule of events each night?So we'd sit like lemmings through rubbish broadcasting
hoping to see something of interest and being subjected to your advertisers.
  Was I just unlucky?I watched many,many hours of coverage and the ONLY field event I saw was
the pole vault (replay) at about 1.30am one morning.

  Channel 7,you really have treated us with contempt and I too will boycott Home and Away,as
much as that will hurt!

[flat feet]

Does any believe that the media can actually broadcast a narrative.

And why was the commentary so negative rather than positive unitl the end?

Mens 5k last night was the same they missed the fact that a 59 sec lap was slipped in.


The racing on both the track and road was wonderful in every event.  the Marathon was a celebratoin in its self and of all of the track and field.

[FakePlasticTrees]

Sparkie, on Aug 24 2008, 11:49 AM, said:

Oh boo hoo.   Showing the entire race, and/or going for extended periods without ads was never going to happen.

Except for the cycling on SBS, no extended event has been covered in full - so why should the marathon be any different.

Sorry Sparkie, but wrong. The woman's marathon was shown in full why can't we have the same expectation for the men's race.

[AJS]

Not to worry.

They didn't show all the USA v Spain Basketball final either.  They crossed for the news and the missed the last quarter.  Showed just the highlights after the news so they could get on with their golden moments thing.

They were never ever going to be able to show this whole game live.  So a contingency plan should have been made.  Give it to SBS or ditch their news (miss one news bulletin in 4 years).  They are the ones who stuck their hand up for this and according to a newspaper report last week they had already reached their advertising target.

Listened to the game on the ABC radio and have to say that those blokes are experts - I could just about see what they were talking about.

The 1300 complaint  line was busy again so when I finally got through I just told them that it was disgraceful and that they showed no respect for anyone.  They have treated sport fans with contempt.

A most disappointing end to the whole thing.

But its over now and roll on 2012.  Newer and better technology, some lateral thinking and we could be in for a real treat.  Let's hope.  And lets hope for some more athletics on TV in the intervening 4 years - something like SBS's coverage of cycling would be nice.

[thomo]

My Daughter had her Football (soccer) final this morning (Lost 1-0).

I listened to 2UE coverage of marathon by Bolts (Ray Hadley) on the way to the game and at half time.

Guess what, they had replays of swimming finals,etc,etc. whilst marathon was being covered.

So get rid of 2UE as well.

[RejoovRunner]

Classic Mr Sawadee. Are you sure you saw a rowing replay 186 times or was it that rowing/kayaking/dingy inflation etc has 186 different categories. I might head out and pick myself up an inflatable lilo in preparation for it's addition in 2012.

If I didn't have a my few marathon watching guests here this morning, my fist and my TV may have had intimate relations at around 10am when we were watching four years of practice eventuate into a competition of "who can hold a baton the longest".

The bad coverage has been receiving alot of coverage itself the last 2 weeks. So much so, we could prepare a highlights package of the bad coverage, replay the rerun then slo mow the previously replayed super slo mo that was just about to be played live if not for Harvey Norman ad and that computer ad where you can water it & drop it (whilst at the same time a message appears saying that doing so will void the warranty).

I have never complained about the coverage. But now with just 2hrs delay, they cannot get it right. Most Australians turn the box on every 4yrs just to watch the swimming, diving, athletics and a few others. They do not turn it on to see super slo mo technology of doublejointed super freak phelps 186 times. Get the private video of him off Miss Steamy Rice if you want to see him that much.

I sincerely hope SBS get the coverage for 2012. I do believe that Bruce Mac is a great commentator. So is Mona but the Gold surely goes to the Tour to microphone - Phil Liggett who is just so very easy to listen to for 3 weeks every July and has been again here at the Olympics.

Okay back to watching the asian version of Milli Vanilli lip synching kids close this circus down.

PS: Bad luck Troopy. These bloody marathons are tough enough let alone the conditions and the pace set early on. At the Gold Coast I tried to reassure you that no Olympic marathon ever goes through in much under 65mins. Sorry I am now wrong. 62:40ish was it??? "Oh my god, are you kidding me? Was that real? Did you see that?"

PPS: another sorry for the Sally Mac interview dig. But seriously, that was one random and slightly cooky piece of post race hysteria!!!!

Goodnight all.

CT

[moby]

I am pretty sure the reason they cut to replays of the two 4x400 relays was because they didn’t show them before the marathon due to the unexpected gold medal in the diving.  Consequently they spent most of the time from 9am to the marathon start replaying the diving.

Just after the relay replays I noticed a message on the bottom of the screen saying something like Coming up: Women’s basketball Gold medal game.  It certainly appeared they might be going to cut away for highlights of the basketball but to their credit perhaps they realised that something special was going on in the marathon and so they decided to stick with it.

I thought the commentary was pretty good in terms of conveying to viewers something amazing was going on.

[Nate]

After the first hour of the marathon om 7 I was so frustrated that I went to the car and listened to it on the Radio. ABC 720 covered the entire race uniterupted and hey, I don't need to see the race, just need to know what's happening in the race.

[ThunderThighs]

I ditto all the comments about channel 7's coverage of the games being well below expectation.  I missed my sacred early Sunday morning run so I could be home to watch the marathon.  

After suffering through constant coverage of swimming, why cant we have just 2 hours of an event first thing on a Sunday morning?  Half the nation is probably still in bed and not watching anyway.  In hindsight I should have gone for my run and just taped the bloody thing then I could have fast forwarded all the crap they put on in between.

Channel 7 suck big time.

Big thumbs up for the abc coverage on the radio.

[The Sloth]

ratdog, on Aug 24 2008, 11:27 AM, said:

what a time to go to an advert, 10 minutes from the end.   Hell with Ch7,  Im so pissed off with them ill never watch Home and Away again.

What do you mean 'again'!!
And how bad must that packed to the rafters show be if they are spending so much effort telling us how good it is?

StellaBella, on Aug 24 2008, 11:28 AM, said:

Screw the big 3 networks... give the games to SBS!

I have been highly impressed with SBS's sports coverage whenever I have seen it. The TDF, world cup football, hey they even did great cricket coverage a couple of years ago during the Ashes when ch 9  didn't want it.
I have no problms with SBS reception so I'd be happy as for SBS to be prime broadcaster for the olympics.

[Michael S]

The adds and replays during the marathon were bad enough, but I thought a classic was when Robert Sandy (err Sandy Roberts) referred to our 3000m steeplechaser as Abdi Yousaf...what skills do you need to introduce someone correctly??

[SMC42K]

We are living in the 2000"s now, the era of digital everything including television broadcasting. Why couldn't Ch7 have streamed the events. That way they could have shown several events simultaniously, allowing the viewers to pick what they wanted to see instead of what the program managers wanted us to see. If they can stream movies in the evening why not do it all the time during the games.
I can understand them showing predominantly Australian athletes & have no problem with that. After all, how many events not featuring US athletes would have been seen in the US. And this would have been the same in most other countries.
I hope streaming is used and used more effectively in 2012.